Day 1

I have a new goal. It's to feed my family without waiting to decide at 6:15pm what to feed them. Too often we end up eating whatever assortment of random items one can throw together in 30 minutes before my husband gets home from work.

A successful day of this would be one where I'm not stressed about dinner, the kids eat well and everyone all around is happy. I also plan to let my kids help me with the food prep as much as possible. It's a great way to teach fractions and let them feel proud of what they helped me create.

I haven't grocery shopped in a couple of weeks so I've run out of things I would normally have. We are out of all meats except ground beef so I couldn't be as creative as I would have liked.

We had enchiliadas. They are just an Old El Paso box mix that I add more tortillas and enchilada sauce to to stretch it further. I actually remembered to get the ground beef out of the freezer in plenty of time to make it without having to do the fast dethaw in the microwave.

My kids did help. My oldest is 6 1/2 and she grated the cheese and helped fill the tortillas with the meat.

I however tried a new peanut butter cookie recipe and that's when everything got a bit stressful in the kitchen. Imagine 3 kids trying to do the job of 1 person in the space of one person. 2 chairs pulled up to the counter and 3 kids complaining about the others pushing them or something. My decision to allow them to help changed at that moment and I sent them all running from the kitchen. I finished the cookies in peace.

Tomorrow night the plan is to make some potato corn chowder that a friend shared the recipe for.